


With My Body

by Corvidology



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, Frottage, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Pining, Post-Canon, Rare Male Slash Exchange 2018, Repressed Memories, Tight Spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-17 19:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvidology/pseuds/Corvidology
Summary: Written for The 2018 Rare Male Slash Exchange for Mimm.It had seemed like such a good idea at the time... It didn't seem like such a good idea now the two of them were trapped in a small canning cupboard in the cellar of a brothel.





	With My Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mimm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimm/gifts).



It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. The police had proved uninterested in the whereabouts of a fifteen year old working class girl, a woman in their eyes, yet Laszlo had still been determined to find his missing patient and John had wanted to spend as much time as possible with 'Post-Beecham Laszlo' as he'd began to think of him... and also to find Lilly Marsh of course. 

 

It didn't seem like such a good idea now the two of them were trapped in a small canning cupboard in the cellar of a brothel. 

 

They'd been investigating the packed earthen floor of the cellar, searching for any freshly dug ground that might suggest a burial site when they'd heard Roscoe's men coming down the stairs. He'd barely had time to push Laszlo back into the canning cupboard he'd just checked. The lock in the door was old and he'd been able to turn the key from the inside to secure the door behind them, like it never had been opened. Roscoe's men's search was short lived – "it must have been the cat, it gets in and out through that small window" – and they hadn't even tried the door. 

 

The cupboard was full of shelves of canned goods leaving the pair of them barely enough room to stand in what space was left. Now all they had to do was wait it out until evening when they'd have a much better chance of escaping by mingling in with Roscoe's customers. 

Yes, that was all he had to do, survive the next four hours wedged into a tiny, relatively airless, dark, hot and filthy space with Laszlo without saying anything stupid. Well, anything more stupid than usual.

"At least the door is old and cracked so we will not suffocate."

Laszlo was right, it was a small mercy but he was a scant inch from the door and by the feel of it Laszlo was even closer to him than that as he could feel his breath on the back of his neck every time he exhaled. 

"You are unusually taciturn, John." 

He was afraid of what might slip out if he opened his mouth. He reached in his pocket for his matchbox and struck one against its side. 

"I hope you are not planning on smoking."

If only he could. He'd smoked his last cigarette hours ago and it would have given him something to do with his hands other than— "Just taking another look at our surroundings."

"Surprisingly, it is still a small cupboard with no other means of egress."

He could not dwell on the ways in which he might surprise Laszlo. He blew out the match before it could finish burning down to his fingers. 

"Can you move back any farther, Laszlo?" The goose bumps on the back of this neck were causing the most delightful shiver up his spine despite the heat and his mind to wander in ways that could lead nowhere good for him. He tugged at his collar. "I'm cramped and it's suffocatingly hot in here."

"I am sorry, John, but my back is already firmly pressed against the shelves. As it is, I am struggling to avoid being smothered by your cologne."

"I'm not wearing any." 

"I assumed— I am sorry." Lazlo sounded... disappointed. "Then perhaps it is an unintended souvenir from one of your recent assignations?"

"Not that it's any of your business" – no matter how much he wanted it to be – "but this is the first time I've set foot in a brothel since before we caught Beecham."

"I know what high hopes you had of Miss Howard and while I'm sure she wouldn't have approved of such—"

"Sara tracked me down outside of a brothel early in our re-acquaintanceship. If anything, I was the one who was embarrassed."

"She is truly a remarkable woman. I didn't mean to pry into your affairs or dredge up any unhappy memories."

He laughed. "There's a first time for everything, I suppose." He took a deep breath in. "Peaches!"

"I really cannot say sorry enough, John. When I think back— peaches?"

"That's what you can smell. I think some of the canned peaches are not as well sealed as they should be and are spoiling. And to think you'd believe I'd wear such a cologne." It was an idiotic conversation but if he could just keep Laszlo distracted from apologizing to him once again then—

"Nevertheless, I am sorry."

"For god's sake, Laszlo, if I have to hear you apologize to me one more time I fear I shall strike you!"

"If it would make you feel better—"

"No, it wouldn't." It wasn't his fist he wanted to touch Laszlo with. "I just wish the subject closed once and for all." It had been so much easier to harden himself against his long held and completely inappropriate feelings for Laszlo when he'd been cold, distant and often unintentionally cruel in his treatment of John, he had to believe it unintentional, akin to the way he might treat a patient, forever prying and pressing on his sore spots. That wasn't exactly true. Laszlo had never treated him as well as he'd treated his patients. 

Laszlo's hand on his lower back felt like a branding iron. If only it was.

"Will you please turn and look at me, John."

He wasn't going to do it. All he had to do was explain it was physically impossible in such a confined space and that would be an end of it.

"Please."

He maneuvered around carefully, shoulders scraping against the shelves. There was probably no saving his jacket. In the dim light, Laszlo's face was a blur above his white shirt.

"I was not honest with myself for years, let alone with anyone else, about my arm... about my father... about my feelings."

"You admit to having feelings?" It was cruel and John didn't consider himself a petty man but he desperately needed to keep Laszlo off balance. 

"I admit to having been a coward, John, to have studied the emotions of others while avoiding dealing with my own. If I had not been, Mary and I might have had many happy years together. You have always been so much braver than I, even when it cost you so much."

Damn him. Why couldn't John get over his own cowardliness and declare his feelings openly? He'd been a poor student, not for lack of intelligence but for lack of interest and he'd been utterly useless in Classics but now he'd finally gained a proper understanding of Tantalus. Laszlo for the first time ever seemed like he might actually be attainable but the truth was he remained as far out of his reach as ever.

"But I have vowed to never be a coward again." Laszlo closed the scant space between them, wrapping his hand around the back of John's neck and pulling his head down towards him... Laszlo was kissing him, actually kissing him, pressing small gentle kisses along his closed lips, seeking admittance. Laszlo's beard was surprisingly soft, so much softer than he ever would have guessed—

 

_Stubble harsh against John's skin, one of the older boys pressed rouged lips to his hungrily, pushing his tongue into his mouth as other groping hands removed his trousers and linen, pinning him to the bed—_

 

He flinched back, ripping his head from Laszlo's grip, pressing his back to the door, panting like he'd just run a race. Laszlo slumped back against the shelves. 

"I had to know if I had any chance at all and now I do." Laszlo stared at his feet. "I'm sorry, John." 

"Damn you, don't ever say sorry to me again." He ripped off his suddenly too tight collar and threw it on the ground, dust rising around their feet. 

 

_He couldn't fight them. They held his legs open, one boy oiling his cock as he crawled between his legs. Another wedged his jaw open, the one who'd been kissing him switching to thrusting his cock into his mouth—_

 

Kinetoscope-like images played over and over in his head but in shockingly vivid color. He'd been heavily drugged but how had he not remembered before? 

He felt again the pain of waking half-naked on Laszlo's couch and being summarily dismissed as suffering from yet another hangover. How had Laszlo, the all-knowing, failed to realize the truth? Laszlo hadn't even bothered to follow him, but sent Stevie in his place. Laszlo simply hadn't cared enough to know what had befallen him.

"You cold hearted bastard!" He pushed against Laszlo, making the jars rattle on the shelves, a couple dropping to the floor, broken glass crunching under his feet, the scent of overripe spoiled fruit rising around them as he struggled to draw breath. He pulled Laszlo's hips roughly up against his own, biting at his lips, drawing blood, forcing his tongue into his mouth as he groaned, so angry he couldn't see straight. 

Laszlo jerked his head back, banging it against the shelves. He didn't move to cradle Laszlo's head, to check he hadn't drawn blood. He would not do it. He refused to be sorry, refused, refused, refused— 

"John, what—"

"Paresis Hall." He pinned Laszlo's face between his hands. "You're made of stone. You never asked what happened to me, didn't care to know, didn't—"

"No! You have to believe me—" 

Laszlo went still under his hands but he wasn't having it, pulling him back in, thrusting against his hips, finding a hardness to equal his own, again invading Laszlo's mouth and digging his fingers cruelly into his ass, intent on marking him. He relished the distracting burn of cloth pulled tight across his rigid cock, knowing Laszlo was feeling it too, Laszlo's labored breathing sweet music to his ears, his thrusting becoming more erratic as the pressure built— Laszlo stopped resisting him altogether, wrapping his arm tightly across his back to pull him in even closer even though he must be in pain pressed as he was against unyielding shelves, John's looming presence cutting off most of what little light and fresh air there was. He wasn't going to fall for another alienist trick, _how to quieten a would-be rapist_ , but kept leaning in harder, bending his knees to thrust up as he pulled Laszlo's leg up around his thigh, seeking to bury his anger in Laszlo's body, seeking to— _Rapist_. 

He stopped moving, dropping his head to rest his face against Laszlo's shoulder, hot tears dampening the cloth of Laszlo's coat, his shoulders heaving. Laszlo was embracing him, making small soothing noises.

He hiccupped as he choked out words. "... Sorry, Laszlo, I'm so sorry, so sorry..."

His cock was still hard and he tried to move back to hide his shame but stopped dead as Laszlo tightened his arm across him back, rocking gently but firmly against him, stroking his back, shifting his head to kiss John like he hadn't just— kissing him with genuine affection. He might have been embarrassed at how fast he spent at the mere thought, if Laszlo hadn't quickly followed suit. 

They stood there gasping, then Laszlo caught his mouth again and they kissed like long parted lovers lost in the joy of reunion until they heard footsteps on the cellar stairs and they both froze. They could hear things being moved around on the cellar shelves and then an excited exclamation of "I knew that old riding crop was down here!" as the woman retreated back up the stairs. 

They laughed helplessly, holding each other up. 

"You must know, John, that I had no idea what transpired at Paresis Hall." 

John stiffened in his arms but didn't move away. 

"Much to my everlasting shame, do you believe for even one second that the man I was then would have not beleaguered you with questions if I had known?"

It was true. The old Laszlo wouldn't have been satisfied until he'd drawn him diagrams and even then would have critiqued his artistic style in the process.

"I deeply regret that I was the cause of dredging up such unpleasant memories." Laszlo edged away from his as far as the space would permit and swiped ineffectually at his trousers with his handkerchief. 

John followed suit. 

"Perhaps you'd like to talk about it—"

"No!"

"I was not going to suggest with me, John. I have colleagues I could recommend."

"I said no."

"But John, the way in which it must have affected your self-image as a man should not be taken so lightly."

"I just almost broke you, did that feel like I was taking it lightly? And my 'self-image' is just fine. It's not the acts themselves that bothered me, they went to surprising efforts not to hurt me physically, but the involvement of children and it being forced upon me."

"So you..." Laszlo speechless was one of the truly great wonders of the world. "Ah, I keep forgetting your boarding school days. I understand such experimentation often occurs there."

Laszlo understood nothing but how to explain further? I've been in love with you almost since the first time I met you. Really, it was love not anger that caused me to force myself upon you. How many times must Laszlo have heard some similarly far-fetched sounding explanation from his patients?

"I hope we can remain friends. You need not worry that I will express my love— affection for you again."

Laszlo spoke so quietly he was sure he must have misunderstood him. "But you loved Mary."

"As you love Sara, yet you implied homosexual acts were not unknown to you, nor unwelcome. My long held feelings for both Mary and you, despite feeling neither one of you were attainable – the inappropriateness of an intimate relationship with Mary, your insatiable appetite for women suggesting no such inclination— But you may take me at my word and I will not speak of this again."

The warmth spreading through his body was more than just post-coital bliss. "And what if I want to speak of it again, to lie with you again?" 

"We didn't exactly lie—"

"Don't be obtuse, Laszlo. You're too good with words and I'm not good enough." He wrapped his arms around Laszlo, resting his chin on his head. "So I'll have to show you at the earliest opportunity, stretched out naked together across a big, soft bed, with my mouth, my hands, my cock, my—" 

Laszlo stopped him dead by raising his head and kissing him, pressing in tighter so he could feel him hardening again against his thigh. 

"... If we were to—"

"When."

"You must tell me if you experience more flashbacks."

"I'm asking you to be my lover, Laszlo, not my alienist." He slipped the necklace from his shirt and wrapped Laszlo's hand around the ring strung on it. "To give me everything I've always wanted."

"Mary's ring." Laszlo grasped it tightly. "But why are you wearing it?"

"Because you gave it to me."

Laszlo slipped the ring back inside his shirt, next to his heart and laid his hand over it. 

He placed his hand over Laszlo's. " _With my body, I thee worship_."

As he leaned down to kiss Laszlo again he knew it would never be easy for them. Laszlo was far too wise to woo peaceably. John wore his heart on his sleeve, Laszlo's was only just emerging from cold storage and they would always have to keep the true nature of their relationship secret from the world. Perhaps it made him one of the masochists Laszlo had described to him, but he couldn't imagine anything he wanted more.

**Author's Note:**

> .
> 
>  _With my body, I thee worship_. From the marriage ceremony in the Common Book of Prayer.
> 
>  _Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably._ Benedick, from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 2.


End file.
